I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it!

Come on, sing with me now... you know you want to! *lol*

Okay, seriously, folks... I've got some great, exciting news to tell ya!

I was talking to Tom, Syrina's social worker today. We were dealing with some other issues we've been having with Syrina's taxi driver and his helper. And he tells me that he spoke to the DLA people today.

Apparently they'd phoned him to clarify something regarding Syrina's respite care. And while they were speaking to him, they tell him that they're already typing up the award letter!!!

If they're already typing up the award letter, that means that probably sometime in the next week, we'll not only get IT, but we'll get the back-pay they award us as well!!!!

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

It's about fucking time! We've been dealing with this for three and a half years. THREE AND A HALF YEARS!!!! The first time we applied was November of 2003. We were told that once Syrina was in this country for 6 months, we could get the DLA for her. It took them another year to deny us based on her nationality. A year after that, we spoke to Tom about re-applying. It took him a good 6 months to gather the papers together and find the files from her original application (his predecessor helped us with the original application and made copies of everything before we sent them off). That was back in like March? April? Something like that.

We still don't know exactly HOW MUCH we're going to be getting. What I posted before was just an educated guess. We have to wait for official confirmation before we know for SURE how much money we'll be getting. But at this point, anything is going to be a big help. For years, we've spend the end of every month so broke we can't even buy bread! (And bread is only £0.28 per loaf... that's how bad it is!) With the DLA on top of everything else, we know we'll at least be able to get through an entire month and not have to worry about going hungry.

Ya know what? That huge crane is right in front of me. I can see the driver messing with the controls to bring down the big hook. It's almost here!

DLA Physician Appointment

Well... it went pretty well, I think.

Syrina was quite cooperative for a change. She wasn't whiny or anything, but I think having been in her wheelchair helped. She's spent most of the day in that thing.

I was asked all kinds of questions. What does she do during the day? Does she have any bowel control? Can she feed herself? When was she diagnosed? What are her seizures like? So many questions I just can't remember them all. I pretty much had to explain Syrina in full detail - from birth to now.

She did something kind of odd - in a funny way - while we were there, though. There was a little examination room off the interview room, with a medical bed and all that stuff in there. She sat on the FOOTSTOOL attached to the bed! *lol* Of all the places to sit!

The doctor said that he'd have to write up his recommendation and send it off to the DLA review board, and we'd have to wait to hear from them. Which is pretty much what I expected. This whole process is very similar to what I had to go through with Social Security in the U.S.

So HOPEFULLY in a few weeks I'll have some very exciting news to post. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, all that stuff. :)

MORE D.L.A. progress!!!!

Well.... ya know how I said "it's all just a matter of time"?

Things are progressing quite quickly. The phone rang this morning - Hubby was out at an appointment with the Job Centre regarding his going to school next week, so I had to answer it. The woman actually asked if *I* was Syrina!!!! LOL!!! I told her, "Um... Syrina doesn't speak." So then she asked for Hubby, and I told her that he was out. When she said where she was from, I told her "Well, I'm the mother, you can talk to me!"

They want me to take her to see the doctor on the 23rd. I was under the impression - from what Hubby said - that the doctor would be coming here. But it's not a big deal. The appointment is set for 10:45 a.m., which means I can easily get the other 3 to school, back home, and get her wherever we're going (not exactly sure yet, they're going to send me all the details in the mail). I'll just keep her off school until after the appointment, and I can take her back to school on the bus afterwards.

They're moving along with this a lot quicker than I had thought. But that's a good thing. I was really hoping that they wouldn't drag this out. Back when I first applied for her social security benefits, it took them over a year to deny her. Then I applied again a year (or two?) later, and it took them 6 months to get to the point where they'd even send her to a doctor. Once I did that, though, it wasn't long before they finally approved her. I'm hoping it'll be a similar situation with these DLA people.

Oh... that's another thing. Hubby was doing some research on what they pay for DLA and all that, and found out that not only will we get more money from them, but we'll get more money for her on our Child Tax Credit benefit as well, just because she's disabled. If everything goes through as it should (and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't), our monthly income will almost double!!!

That forklift is so close I can almost see the driver!!!

News on the DLA front!!!!

Hubby just came through the living room practically jumping up and down. He got a phone call from the Disability Living Allowance people - after months and months ... and months ... of waiting.

Apparently they've changed the law regarding who can and can't receive Disability Living Allowances. Specifically for children's cases. She was being denied due to the fact that she's actually American and not British. But now, it doesn't matter what nationality the CHILD is. What matters is the nationality of the person claiming FOR the child. And since Hubby is the only one of us who CAN claim anything in this country, he's the one claiming for her. All he has to do is go into town tomorrow, send a photocopy of his passport along with a written statement as to HIS nationality to the DLA people, and they're going to send a doctor out here to see Syrina. Once the doctor sees Syrina, there's no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that they can possibly deny her. It's all a matter of time.

(I said to Hubby earlier that, in a way, I almost hope that this doctor shows up when she's trying to eat something... so he/she can see just how INcapable she really is. As soon as anybody sees the way she is while she's trying to do something as mundane as eating, they realize just how severe her disabilities really are. It's something we take for granted, but something she can't do on her own at all.)

The big question now is how long are they going to take to get all this done, and how far back are they going to back-date her payments. Just like social security in the U.S., DLA will back-date a claim for disability. But I don't know if they'd be willing to back-date it to the first time we submitted a claim (which is what social security in the U.S. did - I ended up getting nearly $10,000 in back-dated benefits, which came in really handy for paying off certain bills so that we could move out of the homeless shelter we were living in at the time)... or if they're only going to back-date it for a certain amount of time. Like with the Child Tax Benefit we get... it took them nearly a year to completely settle our claim, and when we were finally fully approved, they backdated it for 3 months. Even though we'd been waiting a lot longer than that, they were only willing to back-date it for that long. Technically it's the same governmental body dealing with the DLA as with the Child Tax Credit, but I don't know if the same rules apply to all forms of benefits or not.

Either way, that means that we're going to be a lot better off. No more of this nearly starving at the end of the month because we didn't have enough money to get through. And when the kids need something, more than likely we'll be able to get it for them. We might even be able to afford to go out and DO things with these kids!!! What a concept!!!!

I can't even put into words what a relief this is. After so long of trying to be careful with our money; trying to make it last an entire month but never succeeding. After all the stress and conflict never having enough money has caused. It's like I can see a giant forklift coming towards me, ready to take the weight of the world off my shoulders. It hasn't quite gotten to me yet, but I can see it coming and that in itself is a relief.

WooooooooHooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!